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brynhammond's review
4.0
4.5
Note that it isn't narrative history, but a set of closely-detailed studies on steppe influence in China. Often largely with linguistic evidence. I am no linguist but I still found each of the seven chapters (case studies) fascinating, and a few of them highly useful.
Sanping Chen says he hopes to follow up with a more general work on the Tuoba/Tabgach, around whom most of these studies revolve.
5, subtitled 'The Iranian Shadows', looks at Iranian presence in Chinese dynasties established by steppe peoples. Cultural input from the Iranian world, as the author says, has been the focus of classic works like The Golden Peaches of Samarkand; but the political aspect is much less explored. He considers that peoples from the Iranian world were such accomplices to steppe rule in China they can be called 'associate conquerors', centuries before the Mongols made this same strategy better-known -- turning the old Chinese adage 'use barbarians to control barbarians' into 'use the [distant] civilized to administer the [near] civilized'.
6, a long chapter, 'Son of Heaven and Son of God', examines anew sacral kingship and titles... was the influence from the steppe to China or from China to the steppe? This is an old question, but I found his look at it very worthwhile.
Other chapters on Mulan in her Northern Wei context (the Tuoba dynasty), digging into her ballad for evidence how 'steppe' Northern Wei remained, which won't be present in normative historiography by literati; on Tang poet Bai Juyi and his attachment to things Central Asian.
Note that it isn't narrative history, but a set of closely-detailed studies on steppe influence in China. Often largely with linguistic evidence. I am no linguist but I still found each of the seven chapters (case studies) fascinating, and a few of them highly useful.
Sanping Chen says he hopes to follow up with a more general work on the Tuoba/Tabgach, around whom most of these studies revolve.
5, subtitled 'The Iranian Shadows', looks at Iranian presence in Chinese dynasties established by steppe peoples. Cultural input from the Iranian world, as the author says, has been the focus of classic works like The Golden Peaches of Samarkand; but the political aspect is much less explored. He considers that peoples from the Iranian world were such accomplices to steppe rule in China they can be called 'associate conquerors', centuries before the Mongols made this same strategy better-known -- turning the old Chinese adage 'use barbarians to control barbarians' into 'use the [distant] civilized to administer the [near] civilized'.
6, a long chapter, 'Son of Heaven and Son of God', examines anew sacral kingship and titles... was the influence from the steppe to China or from China to the steppe? This is an old question, but I found his look at it very worthwhile.
Other chapters on Mulan in her Northern Wei context (the Tuoba dynasty), digging into her ballad for evidence how 'steppe' Northern Wei remained, which won't be present in normative historiography by literati; on Tang poet Bai Juyi and his attachment to things Central Asian.
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